This High Horse You Ride It Has Broken Its Stride
by Copycat
Summary: It's possible Jane feels a little guilty for teasing Lisbon while she's injured. Post ep for 3x15.


She digs herself a little bit deeper into the couch cushions, willing whoever is at the door to go away.

If they had any idea how many times she almost tripped and dropped her dinner on her way from the microwave to the living room they would leave and let her eat her meal in peace.

Except-

"Lisbon, I know you're in there." Jane's singsong voice travels through the too-thin front door. "If you don't open the door soon I'm going to assume you tripped in the shower, call the paramedics."

She stabs a piece of rubbery chicken with her fork, hard, and it almost slips off the plastic tray. He would, too.

"You should get a towel," he goes on, sounding like he finds himself hilarious. "Cover yourself up a bit. Or not," he trails off in a tone that may or may not be suggestive, she can never really tell with him.

It's quiet for a few seconds. Not long enough for her to think he's actually gone but long enough for her to think that maybe eventually he will. Then she can hear him bumping into the door as if he's testing the wood. (It's plywood, he probably wouldn't even hurt his shoulder breaking through it. She should get a thicker door.)

"Go away, Jane." Like that sentence ever had any kind of effect in the history of anything ever.

"Ahh," he says, sounding delighted. "She lives."

"Yes, she does," she agrees. "So you can go away."

"Come on, Lisbon, let me in." He sounds like he's running out of patience and for a deluded moment she thinks this means she's winning this battle, but then she remembers: This is _Jane_, and impatient Jane doesn't give up, impatient Jane gets stubborn and annoying. Well, _more_ annoying.

She pushes herself off of the couch awkwardly, hooks the crutches under each arm and hops over to the door. Does it as quietly as she can, but the sudden silence from outside tells her he knows she's on her way.

"I know you're right there," he says suddenly and she realizes she's spent a good 30 seconds staring at the locked door.

"Go away, Jane. I'm fine." She is. Totally. So she hurt her foot, big deal.

So Jane went and solved the case with someone else, big deal.

So that bothered her a little, big freaking deal.

She's _fine_.

"I know what you're thinking, Lisbon," he says suddenly.

She really fucking hopes not. (So it bothered her a _lot_, whatever. She isn't under oath here.)

"You're thinking if you stay quiet for long enough, I'll leave. You're wrong."

She shakes her head, tries not to smile as she opens the door. "What are you doing here, Jane?"

"You realize I could've picked this lock in five seconds, right?" he asks her, looks like she should be grateful that he didn't as he edges past her into her apartment - almost knocking over her crutch with the paper bag he's carrying.

But he's right, he could. On some days he probably would have. "Yes, I appreciate your restraint," she says sarcastically.

"Oh, it wasn't restraint," he assures her. "I just know how many guns you have hidden here, you might mistake me for an intruder."

She can feel her eyebrows shooting up. "If you picked the lock, you _would_ be an intruder," she points out.

He brushes her off with a wave of his hand, impervious to any logic that isn't his own. "Why didn't you wanna let me in?" He sounds curious, but also maybe a little bit worried or hurt or-

She shrugs, tries not to dwell on that hint of something else. "I was eating."

He looks at the tray of food on the coffee table, his nose wrinkling in disdain. "_That_ is not food, Lisbon."

"That is chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy," she informs him. That's what it said on the box, anyway, to be honest she isn't entirely sure. It might be chicken, it might not. Those may or may not have been potatoes once. She'll give them the gravy, though. It probably is, by some definition of the word.

Jane turns, takes in the small kitchen area for a few seconds, then starts opening cabinets at random and closing them again.

If she'd had any kind of interest in that kitchen it'd feel invasive. As it is, it just seems sort of pointless. (There's a very real chance one of the microwave dinners in the freezer was there when she moved in, is the base level they're working with here. Whatever he's looking for, he probably won't find it.) "What are you looking for?"

"Pots and pans," he informs her, his head inside her fridge.

"Why?" she asks suspiciously, eyeing the brown paper bag he's deposited on the counter.

"Pasta Puttanesca," is all he says, like whole sentences are suddenly beneath him.

She bites her lip. She might not know a lot of Italian, but even she knows there's a joke in there just begging to be made. Going out with another woman. _Please_.

She keeps her mouth shut, though, because as much as she'd enjoy the joke itself, with Jane there's always backlash and she doesn't really need to be reminded that he has the upper hand.

It might be funny to him, and he might enjoy it on some level, but yes. Somewhere deep down in a place she likes to pretend doesn't exist, she was jealous.

The worst kind of jealous that makes her want to lock herself up in her apartment until she's managed to convince herself that he's just another colleague. He could be Rigsby or Cho or Van Pelt, it makes no difference.

If Cho had spent the day working with Hightower and came back raving about how dynamic their boss was, she wouldn't even have blinked.

So why does her stomach feel like it's folding in on itself whenever she thinks about Jane saying that?

She looks at him as he inspects a pot he uncovered from God knows where and then rolls up his shirtsleeves before he starts rinsing it off.

Through the thin cotton of his shirt she can see his back muscles working as he shifts his arms, turning the pot this way and that.

Okay, so she knows why.

One of the crutches slips and she scrambles with the other to stop herself from tripping. Wow. Watching Jane doing the dishes is not something she should be doing one-legged.

Talk about pathetic.

"You should go sit down, elevate that foot," Jane tells her, inspecting a dishrag and then gingerly wiping the pan with it.

She doesn't move. Not that he isn't right, just, what makes him think he can just show up at her apartment and start giving her orders?

He fills the pan with water and turns on her stove, playing with the settings until he's happy and then he turns around, looks her up and down slowly. He pushes away from the kitchen counter and walks over to her, and before she can really come up with a way to object he's guiding her lightly to the couch, his hand on the small of her back somehow steadying her, holding her upright like a magnet.

He takes the crutches from her and rearranges the pillows so she can sit sideways, leaning against the armrest, and then he lifts up her leg and pushes two cushions under it. She tries not to notice how gentle his touch is, pretends the squirming is about getting comfortable, but he turns and looks at her, his hand resting just below her knee, and she has the feeling he probably knows.

She squares her shoulders, prepares for whatever witty remark he's coming up with, but he just smiles slightly, squeezes her leg for a moment that seems to drag on forever and then he stands up.

To be honest, she would've preferred a joke.

As it turns out he wasn't kidding about the pasta puttanesca either. She spends a good half hour channel hopping (_When Harry Met Sally_, no; nature show that looks promising but turns out to be about the mating habits of tigers, very emphatically no; documentary about David Copperfield, why the hell not? It'll probably annoy Jane to no end.) and then just as Copperfield turns to look into the camera, Jane steps in front of the screen, a steaming plate of pasta in his hand.

He holds out his other hand for the remote, clearly determined that an exchange is going to take place. She looks at the food and up at him, then back at the food. It does smell ridiculously good, and that imitation chicken was ridiculously bad.

She pouts handing over the remote and he grins as he hands her the plate.

He pockets the remote carefully and she's half-tempted to make a grab for it, but he's gone before she can make up her mind to do it. When he returns moments later with a plate of his own he stays out of her reach, sitting down carefully next to the cushions her injured leg is resting on.

His food balanced in his lap he goes through a couple of crime shows before landing on the tigers she dismissed earlier.

She shovels food in her face, determined to just suck it up. If he's fine watching some tigers getting it on while they eat, then so is she. It's not like she's twelve years old.

Less than a minute passes and then he hands the remote to her. "No creepy hypnotists," he admonishes. He looks all suave and Jane'ish, but if he were a suspect, she'd bet money that he was faking it.

She grins. "Did you find any pots or kettles while you were over there?" she asks, nodding her head in the general direction of her kitchen.

"You think I'm creepy?" He looks so startled, she's not entirely sure he's joking, but then he laughs.

"Jerk," she mutters, pushes the remote back at him.

In the end he settles on something in black and white, she's not sure what and she doesn't care enough to ask. He fed her, he can pretty much watch whatever he wants, is what she's thinking. Well, not _anything_, but this is Patrick Jane, she's reasonably sure he wouldn't ask if she gets any of the adult channels.

Which she doesn't, thank you very much, but she can still feel a blush creeping up her neck at the thought of that completely imagined, hypothetical conversation that they'll never have.

"Jimmy Stewart, huh?" Jane asks her, equal parts intrigued and amused.

"What?" She looks at him, frowning, and then realizes what he means. "Oh, yeah," she agrees, shrugging and doing her best to look moderately embarrassed, more than happy to let him jump to that particular wrong conclusion.

"Hmm," he says thoughtfully, clearly unconvinced by her act.

He doesn't push it, though, just lets her eat her food in peace and when they're both done he goes to the kitchen to clean up. When he returns she expects him to say his goodbyes and leave, go back to his Red John speculations, but instead he sits back down, eyes on the television, one hand resting oh-so-casually on the ankle of her good foot.

* * *

There's a jolt of pain in her foot making her realize she nodded off, and she can feel the cushions shift as Jane stands up slowly. He's turned the volume down on the TV, but she can still hear the news report that's being wrapped up.

"Lisbon?" His voice is soft, uncertain.

She stays completely still, not sure what the procedure is here. For some reason looking him in the eye right now doesn't seem like the greatest idea. She's not sure what she was dreaming, but just in case it was something embarrassing, she really, really hopes she doesn't talk in her sleep.

"Lisbon?" She can feel his breath on her face and realizes he's bending over her.

Yup. Eyes shut is definitely the way to go.

He strokes her hair, fingers running through it, pushing back the stray strands that have fallen in front of her face.

She wants to hold her breath but doesn't.

He leans down even further, warm breath in her ear, and then she feels his lips pressing against her temple, feather-light, like she might wake up tomorrow and think she imagined it.

"Sleep well," he whispers, twirling a bit of her hair around his finger, and then he stands up.

She squeezes her eyes shut even tighter against the sound of her front door closing as he leaves.

Wakes up the next morning to a foot that's pounding and a neck that's stiff and sore from sleeping on the couch, her arm wrapped tightly around the pillow that Jane put under her head last night before she fell asleep.

On the coffee table there's a glass of lukewarm water, in the fridge there's a tupperware box of leftover pasta puttanesca. (She's pretty sure her kitchen has never been this clean.)

When she gets to work her screensaver has been changed to a slide show of James Stewart photos and Jane's on his couch, reading a book about Bengal tigers.


End file.
